


glory, glory, glory to the night

by romanlunch (dykemedusa)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Violence, but not like. explicit sex. just almost sex. and then implications (TM), don't look at my boner when we fight, self destructive tendencies, set somewhere ambiguously in the dream thieves pre 4th of july, sex....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 17:37:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dykemedusa/pseuds/romanlunch
Summary: “You want Parrish that bad, huh?” Kavinsky seemed pleased with himself for this deduction, and Ronan was so angry that he pushed Kavinsky down, and punched him tidily in the mouth. Kavinsky spit over the side of the hood, his saliva all red. His teeth had cut his lip.“God, you’re such a bitch.” K wiped his mouth.Ronan sneered. He was still angry, his pulse like a jackhammer in his veins. He couldn’t stop feeling. The metal of the Mitsubishi under his hands, the rough hem of his jeans on the inside of his thigh, the place where Kavinsky held his arm, burning pink.He still held Kavinsky’s shoulder, sticky with summer humidity, underneath his palm.“If you don’t shut up,” Ronan told him, pressing his forearm hard against Kavinsky’s windpipe. “I’ll punch your lights out.”Kavinsky’s pupils were so enlarged he looked shark-like, and even with Ronan’s arm pressing down on his windpipe, he smiled. “I bet you’ve imagined him like this.” His voice was barely a rasp. “Having him this close.”or: a study on Ronan's attraction to self destruction in the form of Joseph Kavinsky.





	glory, glory, glory to the night

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this fic comes from thursday girl by mitski. all characters belong to maggie stiefvater. (duh)

The night sky overhead seemed cold and far away, even as the June evening sweat its way through the two boys. They were lying on the hood of a white Mitsubishi, filthy electronica rattling faintly through the hood and the windshield. Ronan’s skin seemed to prick with it, the synthesized barbs catching on his skin. Whatever pill Kavinsky had given him, it did not have the effect of the others. Instead of being dashed to dangerous sleep, Ronan felt far away, and somehow hyper aware of his body. His tattoo tingled strangely.

He lolled his head over to look at Kavinsky. His cheek was cool and sweaty against the feverish metal of the Mitsubishi. Surprisingly, Kavinsky was not already occupied with a cigarette, or a beer, or a shiny, dangerous dream object. Instead, he was watching Ronan. His expression conveyed nothing but attention, and Ronan scowled, raising his middle finger in a vulgar gesture. Kavinsky smiled in a nasty sort of way, and mimicked Ronan's gesture for a long moment. Then, he made a V with his fingers and waggled his tongue suggestively, still smiling.

Ronan did not care for this, and rolled his head back to look at the sky. He slung an arm over his eyes, blunting the stars out of his vision. His skin was too tight to sleep, his limbs too heavy to get up and walk away. Probably, if he tried he could. He just didn't think he wanted to.

"Come on," Kavinsky said. "You gonna ignore me?" Ronan was silent in response, his shoulders pressed tight against the hood of the Mitsubishi. “You wouldn’t ignore Dickie if he came calling.”

It was a barb meant to tear under Ronan’s skin, but it rolled off his back, predictable and unirritaring. Gansey’s name was a buzzword in Kavinsky’s mouth, and it had quickly lost any effect on Ronan. The more K wanted a reaction, the less he wanted to give it to him.

Like he was rifling through his basic understanding of who Ronan hung out with, K tried again. “You give Parrish the cold shoulder, too? Or do you just pity fuck.”

It was a shock to hear Adam’s name in Kavinsky’s mouth. He knew that Kavinsky knew him- Aglionby was small, but Adam was so far from K’s orbit he thought he’d escape his notice. It was like a bucket of ice down the back of his shirt.

“Fuck you,” Ronan bit out. Too fast, too defensive. It was obvious that K had hit a nerve, and he seemed to realize it the same moment Ronan gave it away.

"Aw, Baby," Kavinsky said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. "I thought you'd never ask."

Ronan scowled. His limbs felt restless and tight.

“Always thought he was kind of a pretty boy,” Kavinsky drawled. The more he riled Ronan up, the more subdued he became. “If you like white trash.”

Ronan lunged for him. He didn’t know what he meant to do. Throw a punch? Wrap his hands around K’s throat? It didn’t matter. Kavinsky caught his arm and twisted. The sharp pain stopped him, but Ronan was not cowed.

“Down, boy,” Kavinsky shook his head, a ragged grin threatening to split across his face. Ronan wanted to break his nose.

“Don’t talk about him. Don’t fucking touch him.”

Kavinsky squeezed Ronan’s arm. He was smiling now, his eyes glossy from the pills they took. “What? You’re scared I’ll get in his pants?”

“He’s straight.” Ronan tried to pull his arm away, but K held fast.

“How do you know, lover boy?” Kavinsky was goading him, but Ronan thought of Adam anyway. The chaste way he held hands with Blue. The time he heard them in Monmouth, talking about kissing. He’d felt embarrassed and voyeuristic at the sound of Adam’s earnest voice, his slow Henrietta drawl. And somehow he couldn’t stand it- how he looked at her.

“I just know.” Ronan said. He yanked his arm from K’s grip then. He’d been holding Ronan so tight that there was a pink mark on his arm.

“You want Parrish that bad, huh?” Kavinsky seemed pleased with himself for this deduction, and Ronan was so angry that he pushed Kavinsky down, and punched him tidily in the mouth. Kavinsky spit over the side of the hood, his saliva all red. His teeth had cut his lip.

“God, you’re such a bitch.” K wiped his mouth.

Ronan sneered. He was still angry, his pulse like a jackhammer in his veins. He couldn’t stop _feeling._ The metal of the Mitsubishi under his hands, the rough hem of his jeans on the inside of his thigh, the place where Kavinsky held his arm, burning pink.

He still held Kavinsky’s shoulder, sticky with summer humidity, underneath his palm.

“If you don’t shut up,” Ronan told him, pressing his forearm hard against Kavinsky’s windpipe. “I’ll punch your lights out.”

Kavinsky’s pupils were so enlarged he looked shark-like, and even with Ronan’s arm pressing down on his windpipe, he smiled.  “I bet you’ve imagined him like this.” His voice was barely a rasp. “Having him this close.”

Ronan tensed. He didn’t realize, in his anger, that he was practically on top of Kavinsky. They were pressed chest to chest, thigh to thigh. He could feel the heat of K’s body beneath him. And then, right when Ronan was ready to snap, ready to throttle him, or light another molotov cocktail, or leave- Kavinsky touched him.

He scratched his fingertips against the back of Ronan’s neck, over the knob of his spine, and Ronan shivered. There was something terrible about the flood of that physical sensation. He was over sensitive, over aware of his body, and the sharpness of it filled him with heat. His eyes closed involuntarily, and the thought of Adam swam to the surface of his mind like a photo negative emerging under red light. He could see the blue of his eyes so clearly, and thought about what it would be like if Adam was touching him instead.

The smell of gasoline, calloused fingertips, his straight, white teeth on Ronan’s neck.

Kavinsky’s fingers traced the knobs of Ronan’s spine through his tank top, down, down, down. They curved around his hips and settled there for an instant. He dug his thumbs into Ronan’s hip bones, nails digging in, and Ronan’s hips jerked.

He let out a breath through gritted teeth and Kavinsky laughed, soft and ragged, his neck still pinned under Ronan’s grip. “Sensitive,” He noted, and slipped his hand under Ronan’s tank top.

He couldn’t believe this was happening. Couldn’t believe that with each touch, he felt himself wound tighter. With the pill Kavinsky had given him, it was impossible to resist. Easy to forget that it was K’s nails leaving marks down his sides.

K struggled against Ronan’s arm, straining to rise up against him. Ronan’s first instinct was to push him down, hold him under his hands where he couldn’t escape, couldn’t turn away long enough to trick Ronan with foul words, or a shiny new dream thing. Instead, despite all his better instincts or perhaps in defiance of them, he let go.

Kavinsky leaned up and kissed him. It was not what Ronan had been expecting. It was not what Ronan thought a kiss should be, after reading books and watching movies and listening disinterestedly to other boys recounting their romantic escapades. It was harsh, and warm, and he couldn’t tell what Kavinsky’s mouth tasted like, only that it didn’t taste like his own.

His mouth opened of its own volition, and K’s hands slipped around his back and down again. He felt hungry, overstimulated, every physical sensation like a point of electricity against his skin. Their tongues touched, and Ronan shivered. His skin felt like it was burning. He didn’t know how he was breathing.

Kavinsky squeezed his ass, dragged his hips down against him. Ronan felt a flood of heat below his stomach, desperate and familiar. He bit K’s lip hard, and tasted copper. He didn’t know if it was from punching him in the mouth earlier or not.

K jerked back, and wiped his hand across his mouth- a streak of red against his bone-white skin. Ronan felt dizzy watching him.

“You’ve got a mouth on you,” Kavinsky said, licking his bloody lips. “Jesus. Some fucking bite.”

He didn’t sound unhappy about it, and Ronan refused to feel sorry. He sneered at Kavinsky despite the rising cocktail of anxiety and desire rising in him. “I don’t play nice.”

Kavinsky grinned at him, a goblins smile with bloody teeth. “Neither do I.”

And with that, he pulled Ronan’s neck to his mouth. He took the tender skin above his jugular between his teeth and sucked. It was not gentle and somehow he was glad for it. The wet heat and the sharp hurt of K’s mouth made Ronan grip his shoulders tight, made him dig his blunt nails in and stifle any sound that threatened to come from his mouth.

He felt sick and too tight in his skin. The hatred, the fear, the desire so big it felt like a house. It rose up in him, terrible and impossible to ignore. He thought of Adam again, guiltily. He would be sick if he knew the way Ronan thought of him. He would be disgusted if he could see him with K. He dreamt about him so many times- dreams where Adam ignored him, where Adam touched him, Where he watched as Ronan sliced himself to ribbons and woke up with a pool of blood and no cuts.

Kavinsky ground his palm down the front of Ronan's jeans, his wide spindly hands like a vice. Ronan felt a gut punch of heat and he cursed under his breath like he would when he scraped his knuckles. He'd never done this before. In restless nights, he touched himself, but this was not the same. It felt so good, so awfully good, that he hated himself. He didn't want Kavinsky to have this over him.

K, paying close attention to his reactions, laughed. "Knew I could get you going. You're hard."

"Fuck you." Ronan was angry, his blood rushing inside him faster than the electronic beats he listened to. His jeans were uncomfortably tight.

Kavinsky slid out from underneath him, and pressed his fingertip into the bruise he left on Ronan's neck. Ronan felt the touch somewhere else. "C'mon, Lynch. Lies don't look good on you." He slid off the hood of the car, and went around to open the door. "I've got a special seat for you."

Ronan was so high, so deep in the hole that he'd dug himself, that he followed him. Kavinsky gestured grandly at the driver's seat and Ronan sat. This was where K was, every time they raced. Every time was like a shock of adrenaline straight to his heart. His head was spinning. K pressed his palm against his chest, pushing him back into the seat.

He felt like he was about to burn from the outside in.

Kavinsky climbed on top of him, shucking his ratty, blood stained tank top over his head. They were thigh to thigh, hip to hip. It was painful how close they were. K rucked Ronan's shirt over his hips, up to his shoulders, and Ronan pulled it the rest of the way off.

"What are you doing?" Ronan ground out. His jaw felt tight. His whole body felt tight, like a spring wound too far.

"You should be nicer," K said, his grin somehow vulpine. "To someone who's gonna make you come."

He leaned into Ronan again, his teeth against the thin skin of his neck. His hair smelled like cigarette ash and Ronan titled his head back, his eyes closing. Kavinsky pressed his palm against him through his jeans again, turning Ronan's mind white-hot, the skin on his arms tingling from the sensation.

K sucked on his neck, the pressure of it a dull hurt. Somewhere in his mind, Ronan was aware that this would leave a mark. He leaned forward, pressing his mouth to Kavinsky's shoulder bone, and scraped his teeth over skin. He tasted like metal and salt.

K went for the button on Ronan's jeans and unzipped them, his hands against Ronan's groin through his underwear. He pressed the heel of his palm down, and spoke against Ronan's skin.

His voice was ragged: "Tell me no."

Ronan didn't want to. He felt sick with himself, but he took Kavinsky's wrist and pressed his palm down again, hot against him.

He opened his eyes and looked at K. This was the worst part, the most humiliating. The admission that he didn't want it to stop, even as he hated it. That he liked hurting himself this way. He was reminded, sickeningly, of the dream he'd had. Adam tracing his tattoo until he turned into Kavinsky, and swallowed the ink off his back like a communion wafer.

Ronan rolled his hips up to meet the pressure of his touch. He tilted his neck back, a white column of skin and bone. He felt euphoric and ashamed.

K smiled, his grin spreading over his face like blood onto cotton. He scraped his free hand through Ronan's buzzed hair, his nails sharp against his scalp. "I know what you are, Lynch."

Ronan closed his eyes. There was no going back.

* * *

 

For once, Ronan knotted his tie correctly for church. It only hid one of the marks on his neck, but it was better than nothing. They were a deep vicious purple the color of a rotten plum, impudently visible against his pale Irish skin.

Gansey had balked when he saw them, the morning after. Kavinsky dropped him back at Monmouth- sweaty and stinking of the cheap vodka they used to wash down the pills. Ronan felt sick and grimy and the last thing he wanted was to do was explain himself. He wanted to shower, to crash in his unmade bed after a sleepless night, to change into a clean shirt.

Gansey was, of course, sitting at the makeshift kitchen table drinking instant coffee. He was sleep rumpled and healthy, still in the expensive matched set of pajamas he wore each night.

The first thing he said when he saw Ronan was: "Where were you last night?" And then, considering the dark circles under his eyes, "You look awful."

Ronan didn't say anything, only grabbed the orange juice from the refrigerator and drank straight from the carton. It felt like acid in his stomach.

Gansey made a face.  His eyes strayed to Ronan's neck and collar bone, the marks like dead flowers blooming under his skin. His eyebrows couldn't decide if they were surprised or distressed. "Good God."

"What, Dick?" Ronan slammed the fridge shut replacing the orange juice. He was already angry again.

"Your neck." He was scandalized, crossing his arms over his chest. "It looks like someone mauled you, Ronan. Are those teeth marks?"

"I wanted it." Ronan said flatly, pulling his tank top over his head. The fabric smelled like cigarettes and sweat and sex. "I'm taking a shower."

"Christ."

Ronan ignored him.

At St. Agnes, Declan slid into the pew next to him for Mass. His suit was perfectly tailored, his shoes so shiny they looked wet. Their brother was not there yet. Declan turned to scrutinize Ronan, his face a warped mirror image of his brothers. Predictably, his eyes slid to the marks on his neck, and a wrinkle appeared between his brows. This, Ronan could take pleasure in. The only benefit of hooking up with Kavinsky was that it would piss off Declan royally.

That was, if he chose to tell him.

Declan frowned at him. "Where did those come from?"

"Burglars." Ronan said amiably. "Where did that come from?"

He was referring to Declan's black eye, which had faded to an ugly greenish-brown color. Declan scowled and opened his mouth to make a retort, but at that moment Matthew joined them. He was square and blonde and unbothered in his Sunday uniform of slacks and a sport coat. He smelled like a shock of chemical cologne. This effectively ended any non-conversation about burglars. He clasped his hand on Ronan's shoulder for a moment, squeezing himself between his brothers. "Hey, champ."

This was directed towards Ronan. Matthew was the only person on the planet that could get away with calling him "champ." Ronan exchanged a look with Declan over Matthew's shoulder. They were both searching each other for answers.

Ronan turned his face away to focus on his little brother. "Hey, runt. How's lacrosse?"

The Aglionby team had just started summer practice. Matthew's curly hair was damp from a shower. Presumably, he'd just come from campus.

"It's good!" He was enthusiastic, as he was about most things in life. "We ran off schedule today though. Tom twisted his ankle." He wiped a sweaty palm on his slacks. "Sorry I'm late."

Ronan shrugged. "Nothing's started yet."

Matthew smiled at his brother. "I know. Wouldn't want to miss you guys, though."

At the front of the church, voices began to hush as the priest began the opening hymn. The Lynch brothers fell silent, and stayed that way through the rest of the service. Matthew dozed off halfway through, and Ronan leaned his forehead against the back of the pew in front of him, his arms crossed over his head.

When the priest and the altar boys trailed out of the church, leaving the congregation chatting amiably in the aisles and the pews, Ronan rose. His limbs felt stiff from sitting for so long, his knees pressed in the cramped space between the pews. Declan had already strode out the church doors to take a call on his slick, black cell phone and Matthew was chatting with a pair of elderly women that had been coming to St. Agnes since they were children. Ronan slipped quietly out the doors and stepped around the side of the building.

There was a small local plot of graves, and a few scraggly birch trees. They offered no respite from the summer sun beating down overhead. Ronan's cuffs stuck uncomfortably to his wrists. The staircase up to Adam's apartment was empty, but his bike was chained to the railing.

He didn't know what he was waiting for. He kicked at the dry earth, scuffing his good shoes.

The door at the top of the stairs creaked open.

Adam's hair was the color of autumn straw, and his feet were bare against the white-washed steps. He squinted at Ronan. "What are you doing here?"

Ronan looked up at him. He was a dark spot against the reflected light of the church's white walls. "Mass just ended."

Adam tapped his fingers slowly against the railing. "Right. It's Sunday." He was quiet for a long moment, the cicadas screaming in the trees. "Did you need something?"

They were friends. Was it so wrong for Ronan to stop by?

He shook his head and watched as Adam's eyes strayed down to his neck. He resisted the impulse to cover the marks with his hand, at once thrilled and shamed by the weight of his gaze.

Adam locked eyes with him. Masochistically, Ronan wanted him to ask where they'd come from.   _I slept with Kavinsky,_ he imagined himself saying, and then imagined the way Adam's face would transform. How his mouth would twist down in disgust.

Adam had never said anything to make Ronan think he would be offended by his attraction to other men, but he knew how he hated Kavinsky. He knew how Adam would see him: smudged somehow, tarnished by his choice to associate himself with K. Ronan felt as if there was a black stain on his organs.

He said. "I've gotta go."

Ronan did not really have to leave. He just wanted to get away from Adam. He turned on his heel, and walked out of the dry, unkempt grass of the church yard, back to the manicured asphalt parking lot. Declan's volvo was already gone.

When he climbed into his BMW and looked through the windshield of the car, he could still see Adam standing at the top of the stairs, watching him.

He put the car in reverse and drove away.

**Author's Note:**

> just want to give a little PSA and say i don't think rovinsky is a healthy ship, and this fic is way more an exploration of using relationships (esp sexual relationships) as a form of self harm. I def see ronan attracted to self destruction in the series and i just wanted to explore that a little in fic.


End file.
